Is the pandemic making you rethink your commute? In this episode of HBR’s advice podcast, Dear HBR:, cohosts Alison Beard and Dan McGinn answer your questions with the help of Ashley Whillans, a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the new book Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life. They talk through what to do when you want to work remotely but your company is against it, you’re considering a new job closer to home, or you’ve been offered a job that’s a great fit but comes with a longer commute.
Listen to more episodes and find out how to subscribe on the Dear HBR: page. Email your questions about your workplace dilemmas to Dan and Alison at [email protected].
From Alison and Dan’s reading list for this episode:
HBR: Our Work-from-Anywhere Future by Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury — “Before 2020 a movement was brewing within knowledge-work organizations. Personal technology and digital connectivity had advanced so far and so fast that people had begun to ask, ‘Do we really need to be together, in an office, to do our work?’ We got our answer during the pandemic lockdowns. We learned that a great many of us don’t in fact need to be colocated with colleagues on-site to do our jobs. Individuals, teams, entire workforces, can perform well while being entirely distributed—and they have.”
Book: Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life by Ashley Whillans — “It’s not our fault we’ve ended up like this. Culturally, the inherent value of time has been suppressed. Society teaches us that we should hero-worship people who never leave the office. Moreover, rising income inequality makes us feel as if our world could collapse tomorrow if we don’t spend every moment working, or at least appearing to work. These factors create what I call time traps, which lead most of us to feel chronically time-poor.”
HBR: Reclaim Your Commute by Francesca Gino, Bradley Staats, Jon M. Jachimowicz, Julia Lee, and Jochen I. Menges — “Most people who have long commutes feel like helpless victims enduring a necessary evil. As a result, they arrive at their jobs and homes depleted, and their performance and well-being suffer. But it is possible to improve your commute by turning it into a more positive experience and, when possible, reducing it.”
HBR: Get More Done During Your Commute by Peter Bregman — “Then, during your evening commute, think back through your day hour by hour and glean wisdom and connection from it. How did the day go? What worked? What didn’t? What do you want to do the same – or differently – tomorrow? With whom can you share feedback? Who should you thank? What happened today for which you can feel grateful?”
DAN MCGINN: Welcome to Dear HBR: from Harvard Business Review. I’m Dan McGinn.
ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Work can be frustrating, but it doesn’t have to be. We don’t need to let the conflicts get us down.
DAN MCGINN: That’s where Dear HBR: comes in. We take your questions, look at the research, talk to the experts, and help you move forward.
ALISON BEARD: Today we’re answering your questions about commutes with Ashley Whillans. She’s a professor at Harvard Business School and the author of the new book, Time Smart: How to Reclaim Your Time and Live a Happier Life. Ashley, thanks so much for coming on the show.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, thanks for having me today.
ALISON BEARD: So, what do people get wrong about commuting?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: I think they forget to add up all the commuting time across their days, weeks, months, years, and lives. It costs us a lot of time. If we have a 75-minute commute each way, depending on how you look at it, it’s years of your life lost.
ALISON BEARD: And obviously, Covid-19 and the office closures have disrupted commutes for a lot of people. Are people rethinking that time spent down?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: I think people, as offices start to slowly reopen, are not looking forward to the commute and are more sensitive about the losses of free time. But we’ve actually been trying to encourage people to include a commute, a small one into their day, each day because we should be more time affluent than ever, and yet we’re working through the time that we would have otherwise spent commuting.
DAN MCGINN: Why would we want to replicate any kind of commute when we don’t have to?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: So, a long commute is associated with misery. That is true, but the optimal amount of commuting isn’t zero. And that’s because it provides us with transition from work and home, gives us a bit of a sense of planning our day and transitioning from one role to the other. So, we want some separation.
DAN MCGINN: OK, here we go. Dear HBR: I have a commute of up to 90 minutes round trip per day and I’m tired of it. I want to work remotely. Not just from home, but ideally from abroad. But I’m a salaried worker for a large family business where there’s no precedent for doing that. With the support of my boss, the CFO, I did arrange some flexibility. This started with laying the IT groundwork. I did a deep dive with a consultant, reorganized our systems by workflow and department, and set up security groups so we now access everything away from the office. Then I started working from home some weekends and found that it’s more productive than going in. I moved to one or two days per week remote. I even did a whole week of remote at a house by the beach during a quiet cycle in the workflow. My boss was completely fine with this, but the people above him, including the company owner, are old school. They’ve never given a flat no, but they pushback on remote work. My dream is to be able to work from Europe for a month. Who wouldn’t want to relocate their office temporarily to Spain? But I progressed in my career and I want to keep that going. What should I do?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: So, I think that this is interesting. I think that because of the pandemic, things have changed. Now is a better time, as good as a time as any to take down the old guard and reimagine new ways for work and start these conversations. A lot of senior leadership that I’ve been chatting with, has had to change their opinion on work-from-home because otherwise there’s no other way for their organizations to stay open unless remote work is how their employees are getting their work done. And so, there is more leverage for using an employee to negotiate with your boss and your senior leadership to say, I want to keep this work-from-home, or remote working going since I’ve been productive during this time and I want to keep working from home into the indefinite future.
ALISON BEARD: I think that’s definitely true for some organizations. Wow, not only can we have our existing employees work from home, they can actually work-from-anywhere. We can hire people who live on different continents, but I also hear the flipside. There are companies that are incredibly keen to get back to normal, quote-unquote. And they want to see their employees come back into the office. They’re relishing the resumption of in-person meetings. And it sounds like our letter writer might be working for one of those types of organizations. So, how does he overcome that resistance, particularly if people are saying, no, no, no, we want it going back to the way it was before because we worked better that way.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: I mean I think it’s really important to identify where the resistance is coming from. Is it about this perception that you’re not being a productive worker? Is it about the behaviors that you’re engaging in, maybe even unintentionally that are affecting other people on your team? So, we’ve been seeing a couple of things that can happen when workers are working from anywhere and they might be the only person on their team working in a different time zone. So, a lot of members on teams start asking for a grace period on phone calls, or for their workday and their teams to have a shifted schedule. And that obviously doesn’t just impact you, that’s impacting everyone around you. If you are trying to work remotely, or work from anywhere, work from somewhere where your team is not located, being very clear upfront that you’re willing to stay in the same time zone as your team, and maybe even that you won’t send emails when you’re working, but the other team might not be working and really being very clear in your communication about how you’re going to navigate time zones, for example. It could be something really important to put on the table upfront.
DAN MCGINN: I was impressed by how methodical this listener was in approaching the problem. First, he did a really impressive job of setting up the technology and the security. Then he tested the workflow from home on weekends. Then one day a week, then two days a week. I wish more people who wanted to work from home would treat it as sort of like a test, and learn and experiment, and a hypothesis and sort of build the case incrementally from a smaller start.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, I love that too. I do think that this kind of rapid, testing iteration cycle is great and very thoughtful. But I was really curious from listening to this reader’s story, how much did they let others into their decisions that they were making about working remotely versus updating them after they had already done it? Not only do you want to be methodical when you’re making these kinds of decisions and changing the way you work, but you also want to help others support you and give you their advice to really help them take ownership over the decision as well, and maybe they might see efficiencies on other teams, for other employees, if you let them into your processes, you’re engaging in it.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah, it sounds a little bit like he’s asking for forgiveness, not permission. But he has involved his manager, the CFO, who has a pretty senior position in the company. So, I think with that boss as an ally, potentially with other teammates who would like to benefit from this ability to work remotely, particularly in the COVID era. They might not want to be in Spain, but they might want to be at home a couple of days a week. But again, as you say, Ashley, going to the very senior leaders, the CEO, the company owner with a proposal about how it will be done and why it will make the organization more effective, how it might enhance their ability to attract talent, all of those sort of reasons that they might seize on as oh, this isn’t just a benefit to give to our employees as a nice to have. It’s actually something that’s going to help us in the long run.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, exactly. I think it would be hugely important to show the senior leadership what the ROI is. That kind of conversation could help move the needle on some of these organizations that are somewhat more resistant, maybe for good reason, who knows, around work-from-home and remote work options.
DAN MCGINN: Ashley, I wondered if there’s an optic issue when you start to go beyond work-from-home and get into work-from-anywhere. It’s one thing if I said to my boss, hey, I need to be in Toledo for a week. Is it OK if I just work remotely from Toledo? It’s another one if I say hey, I’m going to be in Hawaii. Do you mind if I work from Hawaii? There are certain places in the world that we just equate with vacation and fun, and not working very hard. And do you think maybe Spain is part of the reason why this is a problem?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: It could definitely be part of the reason why senior leadership is a little bit weary. The beach vacation might have been a signal that this employee cared more about the beach than they did about their organization. So, it could, this particular location could be misconstrued by management, especially if there isn’t a norm around remote work. And then the one person who wants to remote work is the person who’s going to spend that time quote, working, quote, at the beach. So, I definitely think that including that detail might have also not been the most warmly received by senior leadership as well.
ALISON BEARD: Well, Dan, I know you were probably thinking about Toledo, Ohio, but our listener could say he’s going to work in Toledo and actually be in Toledo, Spain. [LAUGHTER] But to your point, he says at the end of his letter, I progressed in my career and I want to keep that going. And I guess the question is, even if they let him do it, is he going to be someone that they see as a person they want to promote and give plum assignments and who can move into leadership someday? There is that face time issue, right, especially in an organization that demands it
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah. I mean this is a really important question and I’m not sure there’s like a clear answer for this. There is research showing that people think you care more if you’re willing to wait in line for something. How you spend your time is a signal of your true commitment. So, if you’re working remotely in an organization that has this image of remote work as exactly being this person who’s spending more time at the beach than in front of their computer, then it might be the case that this organization is not the kind of place that this employee wants to work at, unfortunately. Or, would be most well-received at. It’s very hard for one person to change an organizational culture. It’s possible. But it might be more advantageous for this employee to go find an organization that already fits with their ethos. It’s a tough dilemma. It can be difficult to show your commitment in the absence of being in person if everyone else around you is coming to the office.
ALISON BEARD: I do think that the pandemic has pushed more organizations to embrace work-from-anywhere. If he finds that there are still roadblocks at this company, I think our letter writer could certainly explore opportunities elsewhere. So, Dan, what are we telling him?
DAN MCGINN: First we really admire how this listener was methodical in laying the groundwork for this work-from-home initiative. We think the next step which he’s done is identifying the opposition. Who’s against this and what is the problem? Is it a perception issue? Is it a behavior issue? Is it more of a concern about performance? He’s going to need to make a business case and look at the return on investment, not just for himself, but for the company if he does this. We think the pandemic has probably helped that case because so many companies have watched workers be so productive from home, or from anywhere. We think he has to be aware of the optics of not just working out of the office, but where he’s working. Whether being on a beach vacation or being in Spain, gives the perception that he might not be working hard enough and maybe he needs to change that. And finally, some manager’s impressions about work-from-home, or work-from-anywhere are not going to change over time and that’s going to give him a choice. Either he stays at this company, insists on working remotely, even though it might hold him back, or he could suck it up and go to the office, or he could try to find another company that would be more amenable to the work-from-home, work-from-anywhere kind of situation he desires.
ALISON BEARD: Dear HBR: I’m very happy as the deputy director of a local government agency. My organization is progressive and well-funded. My boss is supportive. My co-workers and staff are great. My job regularly offers new challenges and I have a lot of flexibility and autonomy. But I have a long, long commute. I get to listen to Dear HBR:, the HBR IdeaCast, and other podcasts. Still, I’d rather not do all this driving. A director position opened up in a smaller agency, very close to my home. The title and money would be better and it would present interesting opportunities, but my staff and budget would be smaller. The idea of spending less time on the road, or even biking to work, is incredibly attractive. I have a young child and I’d love to be able to be more available to her and my partner, and maybe even get some time for myself. But if the same position came up further away, I’d be much less interested. I’m ambitious and don’t want to lean out. But I still have a chance to move up in my career as Director of a smaller organization, or am I better off as a Deputy in a larger organization, still dealing with the commute? Ashley, what do you think?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Oh, it’s so obvious to me. I mean I study time money tradeoffs and think so much about protecting time that especially if she’s not going to take a title hit, or a salary hit, that it seems that the commute, especially right now is worth it to give up.
DAN MCGINN: It says the title and money are better.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, exactly. This is a no brainer. Like definitely take the job closer to work. I mean I’ve just seen over and over again in my own personal life and in all of my research that giving up your commute time to live closer to the office, is something you can do that will get you back more time each and every day. A 75-minute commute each way is 110 days of your life you can’t get back over five years. It’s nontrivial and especially given that the money is better and the title is better, although you have a little bit less resources to get your work done, it seemed to me, clear that this seemed like a good opportunity for this reader. I think the one thing that often gets in the way of us making these time money tradeoffs is these feelings of guilt. The reader says well I don’t want to be seen as leaning out. I’m worried about making this decision. Not selfish, but oh maybe it’s not the right decision. Maybe I should keep sacrificing all this time for my commute in the hopes that this other job will land me a better position later. And that kind of thinking is one of the traps that I talk about in my research that makes us kind of overcommit our future time or keeps us over-committed and busy, as opposed to having more free time and leisure now. We kind of think well, I’ll just do that later when I’m a little bit more established, but then we never end up doing it. So, I think that focusing on family time and really committing to spending the time that you’re not commuting, either spending time with your kid or volunteering, civically engaged. In my research, I’ve shown that helps to offset this guilt. So, I think this reader is kind of going in that direction, trying to focus on the positive use of time that they could engage in if they’re not spending time in this commute. And I think that’s really helpful in general as a way to convince ourselves to make these time smart decisions as this reader, it seems is trying to do.
ALISON BEARD: I completely agree with you. I think quality of life and time with family is so, so important and much more important than titles and money. And I think that you can do it without leaning out in your career. So, I would encourage her to apply and just gather as much information as she possibly can about the new job. Because it’s possible that her boss wouldn’t be great, or the organization is going through financial straits. Or, basically, open up both possibilities and know everything that you can about each of them, including factoring in quality of life and commute, and then make the decision.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, and I think that’s a really important point and there is research suggesting that the most important factor for job satisfaction is how you feel in the job itself. So, money, title, prestige, falls away when you’re in the experience of the job on a daily basis. And so I think exactly to this point, try it out or at least get as far as you can to knowing what your daily experience would be, including the commute of both jobs and then compare and contrast these different features of these different jobs against each other, and see which one comes out as the winner at the end.
DAN MCGINN: Yeah, I thought the fact that she’d be going from a deputy director position to a director position, people very frequently move to a smaller place for a bigger job. That’s a very accepted kind of career track. So, if I were her I would try to take the idea that this is somehow leaning out, entirely out of her mindset. This is a chance to lead in a bigger job in a smaller organization. People do that all the time, even if their commute stays the same. So, I think the guilt factor that you talked about Ashley, I would just try to remove that as much as I could from my mind if I were this listener.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah. I mean I see this a lot in the time money research that I do. I would say that one thing we can all do to overcome these feelings of guilt is remind ourselves of the positive benefits to ourselves and our communities, our families from having more time and being less stressed out. People who feel more in control of their schedule, who have shorter commutes, they feel happier and less stressed and as a result are able to volunteer more, spend more time with their kids. They’re more engaged at work. And so it’s important to remind ourselves that making choices in our lives that help us navigate work-life demands in a way that’s better for us, is actually in the long run, better for everyone around us too.
ALISON BEARD: I’m going to pushback a little bit Ashley because it’s quite possible that being a director is going to be much more stressful than being the deputy director. I don’t know that it necessarily will improve her quality of life. I think that’s an open question and I think it’s something she needs to think about. The other issue, which I can’t believe that we didn’t bring up earlier in this conversation is, we have just gone through a pandemic and everyone’s working from home if they’re a knowledge worker. And so, is there any flexibility in her current organization, which she loves, to stay on, but commute much, much less? Maybe once a week, twice a week. Something along those lines? It does seem as if she has a supportive boss. That’s a conversation she could open up, even as she’s applying for and looking into this new job.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah. I mean I think that’s great. We, to this point, we don’t know if the quality of life for this individual’s going to go up in her new job. It might get worse. This is exactly a question she should try to figure out. Will her new job actually afford her more free time, or is she substituting her commute hours for more hours at the office? And too, we should all be thinking if flexibility’s something we desire, now is a great time to be having these conversations, particularly if her boss is supportive about not coming into the office every day.
DAN MCGINN: Those are great points. I hadn’t thought about that. The idea that she could be trading the commute for more hours at the office. Although, there is an argument that if you like your job, the things you do at your desk give you more happiness than the things you do in your car, stuck in traffic, right?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: So long as those extra work hours aren’t administrative tasks or paper burdens, other things that make our work lives feel stressful.
DAN MCGINN: Fair point. So, Alison, what’s our advice?
ALISON BEARD: First we want to point this listener to research which suggests the choices to save yourself time and improve your quality of life almost always lead to greater satisfaction. And as a result, this new job does look like a good move for her, especially since it has a better title and better money. But at the same time, we’d encourage her to investigate this new opportunity. Are the organization and staff as strong and supportive? Will it be more exciting than the new job? Will it be more stressful? Is it going to be more or less likely to propel her in her career? And we think that would really help her get over the hesitation and guilt she might feel about taking back that commute time for herself.
DAN MCGINN: Dear HBR: I work at an incredible company, great pay, benefits, exciting work, and very stable. My role involves coding, databases, and analytics. I’m the only one who does anything like this on my team. I love it. But I’ve received two bad performance reviews in the past two years, and I was told that I could be fired if I don’t improve. I feel stuck because my manager and I don’t speak the same language. They’re a genius in their field, but they ask for clarity on things that could be quickly understood by anyone with entry-level skills in mind. So, when they read my accomplishments for the year, I know they can’t understand most of them. I was recently contacted by a former employee who is now a manager at a startup. He has an open role that would focus 100% on my strengths. I would love the work and I could learn a lot. But the pay and the benefits are worse and so is the commute. And I’m nervous about moving to a less stable company. I would love to stay at my current job. I just don’t feel like things are sustainable. What should I do?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: So, I had a lot of thoughts about this issue that I see more and more as technology has increased. It’s become harder to evaluate employee’s performance. This issue that this reader is bringing forward is something that we’ve been observing in the companies that we work with. So, we actually wrote a case, my colleague John Beshears and I wrote a case for a class that we teach on motivation and incentives, where to bypass this issue a large biotech company allowed employees to start setting their own salary and coming up with the metrics that they wanted to be rewarded for. I’m not suggesting a radical organizational overhaul. Obviously, that’s outside of the scope of this conversation, but it could be that this individual might bring some of these ideas to the conversation and open a dialogue with their manager about how they might want to see this modified so that it better reflects the work that they’re doing.
DAN MCGINN: So, you’re focusing first on this question of can he fix what’s broken at the old job as opposed to should he seriously consider the new job?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah. I mean I guess I kind of gravitated there because it seems to me from the case writing I’ve done, that this issue might be fixable. We even at HBS, for example, as professors, we’re allowed to bring in outside adjudicators under this idea that we all study very different things. It’s hard for someone in my department to evaluate the work I’m doing. But it’s easier for an expert outside of my department to evaluate the work I’m doing since they’re doing more similar work. I mean that’s where my mind gravitated toward first. And some of those issues seem solvable, potentially, if they work in an environment where they feel like they can also be providing feedback to their managers.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah. I think the fact that the new role that he’s talking about has worse pay, worse benefits, is less stable, and also the topic of the moment has that much longer commute which we’ve described as not healthy for people. I think that pushes me in your direction Ashely, saying, let’s try to make it work at this current organization first. At the same time, I’d love for him to explore further this new opportunity at the startup. It’s possible that a startup where the technology voices tend to have more weight and influence, he will enjoy it more. So, and that will outweigh all those negatives I just described, including the commute.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, I also had a similar, a question along similar lines. Whether there is a way for this reader to consult for the startup part-time? We often think about job decisions in a black and white way, an even or way. Is there a way to start consulting on the side for this startup to get a sense of what the culture is like and what the work is like, to understand whether it’s worth taking on this riskier position for less pay and fewer benefits, and giving up their current job, to take on this riskier job? So, maybe trying to get some firsthand experience could also be something that this reader tries to do.
DAN MCGINN: So, our listener says he’s received two bad performance reviews and he’s now at risk of being fired. Are we being a little bit too blasé about his ability to try to fix his situation inside the current organization? And, isn’t there a case to be made that he should get out voluntarily before they fire him?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, I mean this is a good point. So, we don’t often make good decisions when we feel like there’s a sense of urgency. So, it might be advantageous for this person to go through this evaluation and then make a decision either way about what to do next in their career. Saying yes to the first available option, especially when we’re feeling anxious or feeling uncertain, is not necessarily the best way of making a decision. And so, I would really encourage this individual to, given the fact that the performance evaluation might not come out positively to do a, maybe a wider search. See if there’s other possibilities out there too. I know we’re in a difficult economy right now, but there are ways of leveraging our networks regardless of who we are, where we start, what our skills are to cast a wider net than the first available opportunity that presents itself to us.
ALISON BEARD: Yeah, and just so many technology companies in this COVID era have said that they’re planning to have fully remote workforces into 2022 even. And some might contemplate staying that way. So, this idea that he doesn’t just have these two options, but has a multitude of options open to him is something I really think he should embrace.
DAN MCGINN: One of the questions that this raised in my mind, if you compare this letter with the first letter, the first letter was an existing employee trying to get the flexibility to work remotely. This potentially, if he went to the startup, he might try to negotiate before he even starts to not have to do that awful commute and to work remotely more. Is there a difference if you’re trying to get rid of your commute between negotiating to work from home, if you’re an existing employee, versus a new hire?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: So, I think it’s a little bit easier to negotiate as a new hire. It’s not impossible if you’re an existing employee, but all of these cultural factors which I mentioned before and inertia get in the way a little bit. It’s harder to change a status quo behavior. But in the context and negotiating upfront, because you’re in the power position as an employee who an organization is trying to hire, we often forget that we have quite a bit of leverage, especially in an initial negotiation. And although we’re often focused on compensations, sometimes organizations don’t have a lot of room to move there. But they’re much, they have much more latitude to move on other issues like vacation time, like flexibility of work, so it’s easier a little bit to negotiate when you are coming into a new role as opposed to in your current role.
DAN MCGINN: Ashley, this listener mentions pay and benefits and stability, but he also mentions commute. Is that something that people sometimes forget when they’re thinking about the pros and cons of a job?
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Yeah, definitely. I applaud this reader for considering the commute. It’s something that we often forget and that can have a really important impact on our happiness. And in general, we are in an economic downturn. When we are feeling financially insecure, less optimistic about the future, we’re even more likely to neglect these intangible benefits like flexibility, like a commute, that can have really important downstream consequences for our happiness and our job satisfaction. So, we should all be taking a moment before we make any work-related decision, and not only ask how does it affect our finances, but also ask how it affects our time.
ALISON BEARD: So, Dan, what’s our advice?
DAN MCGINN: Well first, we are glad that he’s thinking about the commute as he thinks about this other option. We recognize that there’s some urgency to the situation that he feels like his job is in jeopardy and he might get fired. At the same time, we think it’s at least worth pausing to think about whether his situation in the current organization is fixable. Whether he might be able to have a candid conversation about the fact that the performance system isn’t being conducted by an expert, that there might be a lack of understanding, or ability to translate. So, we would urge him not to completely write off his current situation. We think that he should not just focus on the startup if he’s going to leave. We think, even though he feels some urgency in terms of time that he should do a broader search and try to get more than the two options that are on the table. We think if he is going to go to the start-up when he negotiates that work-from-home, remote work should be one of the things he negotiates for to try to eliminate that. So, it’s definitely post-pandemic or mid-pandemic something that new employees, in particular, should think about negotiating. And we applaud him for not forgetting about the commute. It’s natural to weigh title and benefits and pay and all the other things. Commute should also be high on that list.
ALISON BEARD: Ashley, thanks so much for coming on the show today.
ASHLEY WHILLANS: Thanks so much for having me.
ALISON BEARD: That’s Ashley Whillans. She’s a professor at Harvard Business School and her new book is Time Smart.
DAN MCGINN: Thanks to the listeners who wrote us with their questions. Now we want to know your questions. Send us an email with your workplace challenge and how we can help. The email address is [email protected].
ALISON BEARD: We also want to thank Louis Weeks and Nick DePrey for composing our theme music.
DAN MCGINN: We hope you liked today’s episode and if you want to get the next one automatically, please go to your podcast app and hit subscribe.
ALISON BEARD: And if you liked the show, please give us a five-star review.
DAN MCGINN: I’m Dan McGinn.
ALISON BEARD: And I’m Alison Beard. Thanks for listening to Dear HBR:.